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The Little Guy	By : TokiMirage Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male > Cloud/Sephiroth Views: 2376 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I own no FFVII, I do own my own creative mind, and If I actually made money off this I would be rich. But I don't. So I starve.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
The Little Guy
. , . , .
Chapter Eight: A Sephiroth Interlude
Coffee Crisis
Sephiroth slammed the door of the last cupboard for the fourth time, staring down at the empty box that sat on the countertop.
Empty.

Barren.
Gone.
He was out of coffee. The impossible had happened, and he was out of coffee. The last box he’d found in storage sat on the counter, bereft, and the next shipment wasn’t going to be in until Monday. Zack had harassed him the previous night until he was dragged away to watch a movie, and as soon as he’d passed out, Sephiroth had headed back to the office and gone back to work. He had been awake for the past thirty hours and twenty-four minutes, and now he had run out of the only substance keeping him functional at this point.
Leaving his office, he started working his way systematically through all the offices except the Turks and the President himself, looking for more.
Zack was using a different brand.
Secretaries apparently liked cappuccino and instant coffee better.
The heads of the department had elaborate machines that produced more not coffee than real coffee.
Finally his search brought him to the 29^th floor where a certain blond was washing windows while humming under his breath. Sephiroth didn’t find the sound unpleasant, but even that office didn’t have the right coffee.
“Hey General! What are you looking for?”
Sephiroth looked around the empty cupboards one last time with a frown. “Coffee.”
“What, have you run out?”
Why was he being asked such redundant questions? Scowling, he turned away from the cupboard to stare the blond down. “Yes.” Perhaps the custodian had all the answers. “Why do all the other offices have different coffee?”
The man stared at him for a moment. “Because they all think it tastes like charcoaled rat intestines, most likely.”
Sephiroth closed his burning eyes and tried to rub some of the sleep out of them. If he didn’t get his hands on more coffee soon, he wasn’t going to finish the President’s project on time, even with the extension.
“Why are you here on a weekend anyway?”
The General leaned against the counter and let out a very quiet sigh. The custodian wasn’t close enough to notice. “Project for the President.” It was quickly becoming the bane of his existence and sanity.
Blue eyes lit up with recognition. “Ah, right. I remember you mentioning that last time. And you’ve run out of coffee, hm… Don’t they have a surplus of those exact kinds of supplies somewhere in this building?”
Perhaps the custodian wasn’t full of answers if he was asking the obvious questions. “I already used the last box,” he said irritably.
“And I take it they don’t get a shipment or something until Monday?”
Again with the obvious observations. “That is correct.”
“And why can’t you drink the coffee that everyone else drinks?”
Finally a moderately intelligent question. “It isn’t strong enough to have an effect on my metabolism.” While the average SOLDIER could get by with just drinking three cups instead of one, Sephiroth’s case was far worse.
The blond appeared thoughtful. Sephiroth didn’t know what was going through his head, but after a moment his eyes widened in some sort of brilliant epiphany. Or perhaps he’d just connected the dots to mako. The man had failed the SOLDIER program after all. When the custodian scratched his chin in thought, Sephiroth’s flickering hope snuffed itself.
“I… may have a solution. But I’m not sure I can get the coffee in Midgar. I’d have to look around some.”
Sephiroth stared at him, a coal of hope igniting once more. “Could you? I would compensate you.” At that point, he would have assassinated the President himself to get more coffee.
“Well, I don’t mind looking per se, but technically I’m at work right now and the imports I’m thinking of aren’t exactly cheap. If you talked to my boss, and front the cash to go buy it… I could try to find it for you.”
Sephiroth was already reaching in his pocket at the word ‘cash’ and pulled out all the loose bills he had. He always kept a moderate amount of money on hand in case he needed it. Coffee… “What is the name of your superior?”
“Well… Frank trained me, but I don't actually think he’s the boss custodian, to be honest.”
Sephiroth quickly scanned through his memory, flipping through images of staff profiles and the chains of command in the public sector. Finally, he snapped to the profile of a man who looked as though he enjoyed his job too much. “Niel O’really. I will contact him and inform him that I have sent you on an errand during your shift. If he gives you any trouble, tell him to contact me.” He’d send the email as soon as he got back to his office.
The blond nodded, watching him with slightly wide eyes as he held out the gil he’d pulled from his wallet. “Do you own a vehicle?” he demanded, mind already going through the logistics of the mission and best allotment of resources and time. The public transit system was far too inefficient and prone to having problems.
“Uh, no. I know how to drive a motorcycle, but technically I don't have a license. I was planning on taking the train.”
Sephiroth frowned in thought. Did the small town of Nibelheim not require licenses to drive? It was the only place the blond could have learned how to ride. “That will add a lot of time to your trip,” he said simply, having dismissed the train immediately. “You may take my motorcycle. However, if you crash it, I will have to eviscerate you.” It was a risk to potentially sacrifice his machine in the line of duty, but sometimes risks had to be taken. “Come.”
. , . , .
Sephiroth tapped his pen against the surface of his desk, staring out the window and wondering how he was going to pull this project together in less than a week. Looking at his timeline, he had only just finished going through the first ten years of the time frame, and he was well aware of the fact that there would be more reports to read and sort through the closer he got to the present.
His mind shifted to his fatigue, which led to the unforgiveable lack of coffee, which led him to a certain blond out getting him coffee, which led him to the memory of the blond’s reaction to his bike. It had bordered on obsession, the look in the man’s eyes when he’d caressed the machine. He had said he was a mechanic before. Perhaps the bike he used to ride he’d owned himself and worked on?
He’d also gotten the blond’s number. It was a tactical error for any leader to send a man on a mission without being able to contact him, after all. Although, it would certainly be-
“Waiting for some loooove, Waiting for the man to steal my~”
Sephiroth cut off the ring tone with an annoyed scowl. When had Zack gotten his hands on his PHS?
“-had stolen the General’s fucking bike, you imbecile?” Sephiroth blinked fatigued eyes as his slowed brain tried to process why a certain blond had called him an imbecile. “General, could you please tell this security guard he is an imbecile and to let me through the gate already with your damned coffee?”
A pause.
“Hello?”
Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed. His coffee was here and a security guard had the gall to slow its return? “You will let custodian Strife through the gate immediately or I will hunt you down and fire you for incompetence and gross lack of common sense, soldier, before making sure you are never hired by Shinra or anyone else every again. Understood?”
“Y-yes, sir, General, sir,” the shaky voice said into the receiver, sounding suitably cowed. He heard him say “You’re clear, Mr. Strife, sir” before the line was cut.
Sephiroth closed the PHS and put it back in his pocket, dropping his pen and making his way out into the main office. Checking the coffee pot, he rinsed it and threw out the old, used filter. After checking that he had everything he needed, he paced the room and wondered how long it could possibly take to get from the basement to the 61^st floor. His mind rattled numbers off at him – thirty seconds to park, twenty-five seconds to the elevator, two minutes and ten seconds to the 20^th floor, three and a half minutes to the next elevator, four minutes and thirty seconds to the 61^st floor, five minutes to brew – as he counted down the seconds and dug a much-needed chocolate bar out of his stash.
One minute into the countdown, he realized he had forgotten to give the custodian a way to get into the executive elevator. Annoyed at himself for forgetting this, and knowing service in the basement was atrocious, he left his office and hit the button for the 20^th floor.
He got all the way down to the basement without running into the blond. Looking around the garage, his lips tightened as he caught sight of his bike, but no blond.
“Waiting for loooove, Waiting for a man to~”
He flipped the PHS open.
“Sephiroth, where the hell are you? Do you want your damned coffee or not? I’m in your office and you’re not here. There’s a Turk here who thinks I’m a terrorist, so get your ass up here already.”
Sephiroth cursed in his head and hit the up button for the elevator. Smacking the button for the 20^th floor, he wondered at the odds of a Turk being in the garage at the same time as the blond on a Saturday afternoon.
“Look, if you’re worried about your bike, she’s fine. Not a scratch. Handled smooth as a hooker from the Gold Saucer.”
Hearing that, Sephiroth froze before running the entire conversation back over again now that he was focusing on what the blond was saying instead of his irritation at missing them on his way down. Hooker from the Gold Saucer? ‘Get your ass up here?’ Even Zack didn’t dare to order him around like that.
Although, Zack wouldn’t have been able to solve his coffee problem, either. Why the blond had known about coffee imports of all things intrigued him. Not only had he pulled apart the coffee maker and fixed it, but he apparently had enough knowledge of Midgar and its suppliers to locate, purchase, and retrieve imported coffee for him in less than an hour.
“Hello? Are you there or did the line drop?”
“I’m here.”
“And where in the building are you?” The blond demanded, his no-nonsense tone reminding Sephiroth of his commanding officers before he had risen through the ranks.
The elevator dinged, and Sephiroth used his unnatural speed to get to the next one in the shortest amount of time. “Getting back on the elevator.”
“Ah. We must have missed you on the 20^th floor.”
Deductive reasoning, too. “It appears so.” While it had irritated him at the time, the blond’s questions concerning his hunt for coffee had been rather efficient and to the point. Not to mention it had resulted in coffee.
“Alright then. I guess I’ll see you in a few.” The blond hung up, dismissing him easily. Sephiroth stared at the PHS for a moment before putting it away and watching the little red numbers that climbed steadily, but far too slowly.
Finally, the elevator reached the 61^st floor and Sephiroth exited to see Reno of the Turks standing there and a rather tense blond standing in front of the coffee machine, his entire focus aimed at filter he was currently filling.
“Turk.” The General stared him down, feeling a burst of vindictive pleasure when the redhead shifted nervously.
“General. I take it ya know this kid?”
Sephiroth was impressed that his voice showed little sign of stress. Then again, this was a Turk. “Indeed.”
“Alright then. I’ll… leave ya to it.”
Sephiroth ignored the leer Reno gave him before eyeing the blond’s back a little more thoroughly than was necessary. The General stared him down until the Turk hurried up, leaving the room with a small grin.
Pleased that the blond was already brewing his coffee, he caught the keys that were tossed to him and raised an eyebrow. “Any problems?” The speed at which the task had been completed said otherwise, but Sephiroth was used to asking for a report.
The blond shrugged. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
So something had happened. Before Sephiroth could ask him for clarification, the blond shoved a wad of gil in his face. Taking it, he counted the bills and was surprised to see so little returned. How much had he given the blond in the first place?
Without being asked, the custodian broke into a detailed report. “This is hama, a Wutaian coffee that can melt the lining of your stomach if you’re not careful.” After showing it to the General for a moment of inspection, he deftly put it away. “This first batch cost 100 gil, but the next time I visit him I’ll be able to get a better deal, now that he knows my face.”
Sephiroth wondered how the blond knew the finer details of shopping customs in Wutai.
“This is Grenada. It’s a coffee grown near Cosmo Canyon. It has a really strong, almost repugnant flavour if you’re not used to it or it’s not to your taste. I mix a filter two thirds Grenada and one third hama. This is a personal taste of mine, and you can adjust the balance however you like.”
Sephiroth watched him put the remaining packages away and wondered. How had the blond happened across these two rare types of coffee? He’d obviously been drinking them for a while, if he knew his own preference, and yet he had not tried to find the products before during his three years in Midgar. That implied that he had drank it before he came to the SOLDIER program, but since when did a small mountain village get specialty coffees? “Why do you mix them?” he asked curiously, having never known anyone to do that with coffee before.
“Hama is extremely bitter and harsh on the taste buds, as well as your stomach. Its sheer caffeine content has been known to give small animals cardiac arrest if consumed in large quantities. When you mix it with Grenada, which is also high in caffeine content, the bitter taste is softened by rich flavour that has a much more pleasant aftertaste than hama. Personally, I find the combination more appealing than the separate flavours.”
Sephiroth nodded, eager to try this new coffee that apparently didn’t bother the blond’s palate nearly as much as Shinra’s… fried rat intestines, was it? Watching the coffee slowly count down, second by second, he was pulled from his thoughts by the blond going to the fridge and pulling out the cream. When he was about to pour the cream into one of the mugs on the counter, Sephiroth caught his arm in alarm.
“What are you doing?”
“Look. I know what I'm doing. Just trust me. You won’t need nearly as much cream as you normally do, and if you don’t like it the way I prepare it, then you can just add more. No harm, no foul. Okay?”
Sephiroth weighed his choices. Cynthia had never failed to make his coffee the wrong way, but the custodian had proven himself to be remarkably competent and observant of Sephiroth’s preferences. Perhaps he could anticipate this as well. Releasing the blond’s wrist, he took a step back and watched as the blond poured in less than half the amount of cream he usually did, as well as three teaspoons of sugar.
How had he known Sephiroth liked three teaspoons of sugar? The only time the General had prepared coffee in front of him was after the coffee machine was fixed. If the blond was observant enough to remember a coffee preference three weeks after the fact, what else did he remember on a day to day basis?
The coffee was just dripping now, and Sephiroth was pleased to see that the custodian didn’t care enough for the last dregs to wait those thirty-six seconds either. After the blond finished pouring and stirring, Sephiroth quickly snatched the cup held out to him and held it in front of him, letting the fragrance drift up to his face and permeate his nose. While completely unfamiliar, it had an undeniably more appealing smell than the coffee he had become accustomed to over the years by sheer necessity.
Cautiously, he took a sip. Let the unique flavour roll over his tongue before swallowing. Finding the temperature still too hot for an accurate testing, he blew on it and took another sip. Then a mouthful. It was certainly flavourful. So strong as to almost be repugnant, just as the blond had said. He’d never had anything like it before.
“Well?” the custodian asked with a frown.
Sephiroth smiled slightly in amusement as the liquid dropped into his empty stomach and warmed him slightly. “It’s certainly different.”
The blond, who had finished half his cup while the General was testing the new brew, rolled his eyes and moved to walk past him to the elevator. “Whatever. I’m going to go back to my squeegee, then. At least it appreciates my fine tastes and hard work.”
Sephiroth’s brain kicked into overdrive as he tried to figure out what he had said to piss the blond off. Snatching the custodian’s arm, he took another drink of coffee to get his sleep-deprived processes back up to speed. Had ‘different’ not been acceptable? “It’s good.”
But the blond just continued to stare at him. “Aaand?”
‘Good’ wasn’t acceptable either? He ran over the conversation for the third time. “I appreciate your fine tastes and hard work?”
But the blond just sighed and gave him the same look his First Lieutenant did when Sephiroth had said or done something to make him go quiet, and Sephiroth was well aware of the fact by now that when Zack went quiet, he was one of three things: extremely angry, hurt, or depressed. “You know, in the interests of your sex life, you should really ask Zack to coach you on the art of the compliment, because there’s a huge hole in your social education. Fail, man. Just, fail.”
He pulled himself out of Sephiroth’s grasp and went over to the elevator, pounding the ‘down’ button with his thumb. The General watched him go, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. Apparently he had failed to make the correct compliment, or it was his execution of the compliment. But why this reaction? He almost appeared… insulted.
Grabbing the man by the shoulder, he pulled him around so he could get a better look at the man’s irked expression. “Why are you angry?” It was time he ceased making assumptions and got to the bottom of this misunderstanding. The man had located him a coffee replacement.
But then the blond’s expression deadened, anger wiped away like a stain on the Masamune. All traces of emotion in the lines of his face and his eyes vanished into a blank slate. All Sephiroth could see now was a slight dilation in his pupils and the increased rise of his chest with each breath. He looked like a SOLDIER preparing himself for battle.
“I’m not angry.”
“Then why are your pupils dilated and your heart rate accelerated, if you are not prepared for a fight?” Verbal or otherwise, Sephiroth was now curious to know.
The blond scowled, and the eyes that looked at Sephiroth were not warm and light hearted cerulean, but hard chips of ice. The General couldn’t figure out what had elicited such a strong reaction. “There’s more than one cause of pupil dilation and increased heart rate,” he snapped, voice quiet but deadly. The overall effect of his shift in behaviour peaked Sephiroth’s interest as he leaned in, examining the defensive man more thoroughly.
“Desire then?” he hazarded a guess. If he was wrong, the man would get even more angry. If he was right, then maybe it would explain the sudden, mercurial shift in behaviour. If he saw Sephiroth as a sexual interest, and the General had failed to compliment his accomplishments sufficiently, he might be insulted.
The blond’s reaction derailed all his expectations. Blue eyes widened, pupils dilated further with a surge of adrenaline, and his entire form stiffened with what was either desire, or fear. Sephiroth didn’t have enough data to decide. The idea that the blond found him attractive, however, was strangely fascinating, given his absolute lack of the usual symptoms of facial flushing, stuttering, idiocy, leers, or terribly executed flirting.
“What?”
“Desire. It is another source of dilated pupils and accelerated heart rate,” he stated factually, watching the blond closely for his reaction to prove or disprove his hypothesis.
“Really? Well I’m sure there’s something else,” the man griped, his usual stubbornness and lack of fear in Sephiroth’s presence shining through.
Sephiroth smirked slightly. “No. You do not fear me, so it is desire, or anger.” He brought his face a bit closer to the blond, eyes locked on expressive cerulean depths. “So which is it… Cloud?” he murmured in a deep, resonant tone, using the man’s name for the first time in the hopes of eliciting a reaction.
It was a reaction alright.
The flush of emotion that had darkened the skin of his face drained as blue eyes glazed and looked through him as a mixture of pain and fear raced across his eyes.
The blond shoved him, and it was only Sephiroth’s surprise that made him step back as the smaller man scrambled away from him as though he had drawn Masamune with the intention of gutting him. The General let him go, bewildered at the sudden, triggered shift in behaviour. The elevator doors shut on the terrified eyes of an animal fleeing for its life.
Sephiroth frowned, staring at the doors in deep thought before warmth on his legs drew his attention downward to the remains of the blond’s coffee spilled on his legs and the beige carpet of his office. That…
Had not been expected.
. , . , .
Sephiroth packed up the last of the reports he’d been going through before sitting back in his chair and staring ponderously at the empty cup of coffee sitting on his desk. The events that had transpired earlier that afternoon had been gestating in the back of his mind for the past few hours before he had decided he was too distracted and decided it was time to call it a night.
As he hadn’t slept in 36 hours, and he’d been drinking coffee at the rate he usually did, his brain had been jumping between five completely different trains of thought simultaneously for the past two hours on a caffeine high that could have driven a lesser man insane. Considering he usually drank one cup an hour, it had added a new consideration to the Strife Quandary.
If one cup of coffee per hour for three hours had unbalanced him enough that he had to stop working lest he risk making more grievous errors, then what had half a cup of coffee done to Strife in the span of a few minutes? Even taking into consideration the fact that most caffeine was absorbed through the digestive track, which took time, some was still absorbed orally if in high enough concentrations. Which the coffee was.
Spinning his chair to the angled extension of the side of his desk that housed his computer, he searched the scientific portion of the database for caffeine in the ‘drug’ subheading. A few files and papers appeared in a list, so he went through them all until he had a much better understanding of the drug’s affects and, more importantly, the symptoms of an overdose.
Leaning back in his chair, he absorbed and sifted through the information he’d read. Strife had had many of the signs. His breathing had been unsteady and irregular. His heart had likely been palpitating, resulting in a flushed face. Pupils dilation could easily been explained by an increase in adrenaline. And then something had set him off and pushed him into… an episode.
Taking a bite out of his chocolate bar, he ran the memories through his head again, taking special care to observe and categorize facial expressions, word choice, and posture.
After running the scenario with a few different possibilities in mind, he eventually settled on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Unfortunately, when taking into account Strife’s record and the bits Zack had ranted to him over the past year, he was brought to a rather perturbing conclusion.
Either Cloud had suffered trauma in his home town, or at Shinra itself in the SOLDIER program, of a violent or sexual nature. With the evidence he had gathered thus far, it could be a mixture of the two. With the trigger in the office, he was inclined to lean towards sexual. While Sephiroth himself had been curious and acted to incite a reaction from the blond, he had unintentionally fallen into a pattern that had provoked what was likely a flashback.
Before he could contemplate the details of such a flashback, Zack came bursting into his office.
“SEPH!” The man threw himself into Sephiroth’s guest chair. “You and I are leaving right now! You’ve been locking yourself in this office for too long, you need a break! Some time to unwind. Maybe a drink or two and a massage from a hot young lady. You’ve got all this money you don’t spend that you could put towards some much needed leisure time. And maybe if you got a secretary who can do more than file and organize crap and forward phone calls, you wouldn’t be stuck here so late working on that project for Shinra anyway! Have I mentioned she doesn’t like me? I mean, how can she not like me? Only an evil concubine could look past my good looks and charming personality and still find me unlikeable. Hell, Spike likes me and he’s never been a ball of sunshine. Though, ever since he failed that SOLDIER exam he’s been a bit… brighter and darker if that makes any sense. Less moody. He’s usually pretty happy, joking and giving as good as he gets, but sometimes he gets this look in his eye… Makes me wonder if ever told me all that happened in the SOLDIER program. Maybe it’s best he quit. But anyway, you should be more like him! He at least relaxes once in a while, or works out his stress with physical exercise. When was the last time you worked out, Seph? A year ago? All I see you doing is paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork these days. You don’t even spar with me anymore, which is really uncool you know! I always improve the fastest when you’re there to knock me on my ass and point out my faults. I might have lost that duel against McAphry if he hadn’t been so angry and bitchy lately. So what do you say to watching a movie? We can get some nice Wutaian since I bet you haven’t eaten anything all day, and-“
“Zack.”
The puppy blinked huge eyes at him and looked so close to heart break at being told ‘no’ that Sephiroth was tempted to do it just to see the look on his face. Coincidentally, however, he had decided to leave the office anyway, and he might as well watch a movie while he waited for the caffeine to wear off so he could pass out and get ten hours sleep. “Quit your rambling and order the Wutaian.”
The SOLDIER First Class stared at him with his jaw dropped for a good five seconds before he jumped up with a cheer and pulled out his PHS, running out of the room in his excitement and ordering them enough food to feed five SOLDIERS.
It was going to be a long night.
. , . , .
Warning: Puppy at Play
“Don’t worry Seph, it’ll be fine. Just bring him up here, do your thing, and it’ll be great! I’ll even be here for moral support. Whatever you did to him can’t have been any worse than what happened later that night,” Zack said with a grimace.
The General’s interest was peaked. “What happened later Saturday night?”
“Well… I didn’t get many details. Apparently he had to kill two guys to protect himself and his… date for the night.” Sephiroth’s eyebrows rose in surprise at the venom in Zack’s voice on the word ‘date.’ “Damned Turk got him into that position in the first place.” Turk? Strife had been going on a date with a Turk? “That guy totally had plans to take advantage of Spike! He’s a sexual deviant! Have you heard the things people say about him in the secretarial pools? He’s left countless women high and dry after a night of passion, and ignored their existence the next day! He’s a total manwhore!”
Sephiroth raised an eyebrow. That didn’t quite follow his hypothesis of sexual trauma. Though it did line up with his initial hypothesis of sexual frustration. “Did he have intentions of engaging in sexual relations with this man?”
“Yeah! And when I asked him about it, he just laughed at me! Laughed! I had valid concerns! Guy like Reno could be a walking death trap for sexually transmitted diseases! Not to mention a threat to Cloud’s virtue!”
An image of a redheaded Turk flashed behind Sephiroth’s eyes, followed by a quick description of his areas of expertise within the Turks. Technically he should never have been able to see the file, but he’d hacked it from one of the secretary’s computers downstairs at four in the morning on a Sunday night once when he’d decided to take a break during another all-nighter. It was true he was also well known for his sexual promiscuity.
The fact that Strife had attracted the Turk and intended to go home with him was either a good, or a bad sign, and Sephiroth didn’t have enough Intel to accurately hypothesize which.
Perhaps it was time for another hack into the Turk’s files. Somehow he doubted Tseng would tell him anything.
“So, are you going to go get him to apologize like we talked about last night, or what? Ooh, what did you end up deciding on for a gift?” Zack asked again, playing with one of Sephiroth’s paperweights as he sat in the guest chair. When the General said nothing, sorting through his paperwork, his First Lieutenant sighed, leaned back in the chair and started bouncing.
CRA-CRACK.
Sephiroth glanced up sharply to see Zack tumble backwards over the chair with a yelp as the hind legs gave out under his weight and broke off the base of the chair, which was apparently a week spot in its structural design. Definitely not built for a puppy to play on.
Running a hand over his face, he mentally started drawing up a requisition form for a new chair.
“Hey! Now you have an excuse to go get him and bring him up here!” the SOLDIER called from the floor, feet still dangling in the air.
. , . , .
Sephiroth walked halfway down the hallway on the 29^th floor, glancing quickly in the offices as he passed them by for any signs of blond hair. Finally, he found himself frowning at the sight of a large bag filled with garbage, left carelessly next to the wall and the closet that held the custodian’s supplies. As annoyed as he was with Zack for breaking his chair – intentionally or not – he had to admit that it was a convenient excuse.
Seeing the door was partially open, he deduced that the custodian was fetching some supply or other. Pulling it open the rest of the way, he froze at the sight of what lay beyond, eyes cataloguing the scene without his permission. Noting the way Strife had pinned the Turk, Reno, to the wall and currently had the redhead staring at the ceiling with a dazed expression. Observed how the blond’s center of gravity was lower, and his right hand hooked under the Turk’s body, undoubtedly with his fingers up the other man’s ass.
He stared in surprise at the provocative sight as his mind put all the pieces together into the full image that it was, a look of wanton lust on the Turk’s face and the controlled, powerful, dominating, and pleased expression on Strife’s face.
Just as his wildly calculating mind pieced the whole scene together, blue eyes drifted towards him and met his own. First, his expression shifted into absolute shock at the sight of him. What Sephiroth expected to devolve into fear or embarrassment at their current predicament, however, shifted into that blank look the blond had adopted while on the defensive the other night, except this time molten heat and emotions too tumultuous for Sephiroth to decipher churned beneath. With a recovery time reminiscent of a soldier prepared for anything, the blond finally spoke.
“Hello General, what can I do you for today?” His accent came through thicker, and his voice, which was usually smooth and perfectly controlled, rumbled gravelly in his chest. Sexual desire had dilated his pupils, but unlike two days previous when he had been mostly blank and defensive, every line of his body screamed with controlled tension, defiance, and mettle that the General had not been faced with since Genesis.
The Turk choked then, and Sephiroth noted his horror at their discovery by himself for a moment before the blond defensively shifted their bodies to better shield the other man from sight. The General noted the action and mentally filed it away. Was he that protective of everyone, was he sexually territorial, or did he possess within that carefree and laid back persona the edge of a blade much like Zack himself?
Zack, however, was not nearly as frustratingly complicated. Once Sephiroth had noted his behaviours and deduced effective methods of managing him, Zack had become easy to ignore and work with. His patterns were reliable. Unlike the man who stood before him with his finger up the ass of a Turk, living proof contradicting Sephiroth’s hypothesis of past sexual trauma.
“Zack broke my chair,” he reported simply, sharp eyes watching as the man raised an eyebrow, hummed in thought, and proceeded to continue his business with the redhead at his mercy.
When the blond gave him a daring look, making the Turk let loose a surprised sound of pleasure, Sephiroth wondered if this was a challenge of some kind. His knowledge of psychology from endless hours of training under Hojo’s ‘loving’ hands gave him no insights on the sexual implications. The look in his eyes, while convoluted and difficult to decipher, also contained little of the hostility that he had been expecting in light of recent events.
“I see. Give me ten seconds.” His gravelly voice had cleared again, though it remained dark and commanding, as though he were the one used to giving orders.
And now the man was servicing the Turk right in front of him. Again the man was making him modify and second guess his conclusions, for he didn’t seem to care at all that Sephiroth was there, watching. He had completely dismissed the General’s presence. Where he had been so insulted by an insinuation of sexual desire before, now he blatantly displayed his own sexual experience by taking the Turk into his throat and ripping an orgasm from him in five seconds.
He also displayed an unusual amount of consideration as he gently lowered the collapsing redhead to the ground and dressed him once more.
The blond’s attention turned to Sephiroth once more as he stood and gave the General a level look, eyebrow raised. “Will a tool box be enough, or shall I bring two types of glue? One to fix the chair and the other to attach Zack to the ceiling?”
Sephiroth felt Strife’s rather abrupt shift of behaviour reflected in his own jarred thought processes. All signs of aggression had gone, and his indifference to Sephiroth’s presence shifted into the more familiar relaxed and joking persona that the General had become accustomed to.
As a commanding officer charged with the control, safety, and health of an army of SOLDIERS prone to exhibit signs of aggression and mental instability due to their enhancements and regular mako injections, this inconsistency in character and behaviour was almost alarming.
“A few nails may not be remiss,” he said as a new train of thought spiralled off, producing a network of possibilities, consequences, and circumstantial evidence that supported or opposed the new conundrum.
Strife proceeded to efficiently gather the necessary materials while the Turk recovered on the floor of the closet. Now that his body was out of the way, Sephiroth caught sight of what had obviously been used as lubrication. Ignoring the Turk’s wide-eyed confusion and alarm as he looked back and forth between Sephiroth and Strife, the General turned his eyes to the blond who had finished gathering a toolbox and a box of nails.
Strife paused at the Turk’s feet. “I’m sure you know when I get off and what my PHS number is by now. Perhaps we can continue this later. It’s up to you.”
It appeared as though Strife’s confidence in handling the Turk did not come from stupidity. If he suspected the redhead capable of hacking his personal information, he was neither blind nor stupid. Sephiroth failed to see cause for Zack’s earlier irrational concern for the blond’s sexual virtue, as the blond had exhibited a skill that could not have come from anything but experience.
A lot of it.
Sephiroth was aware that sexual relations often occurred in the cadet barracks, but… he didn’t believed stolen moments of pleasure sufficient to produce one such as Strife.
They traveled in silence to the executive’s elevator, where Sephiroth turned his recent circumstances over and over again in his head until he had more questions than answers.
“It is company policy that I report this break of protocol to your supervisor,” he finally said, after having briefly reviewed the rules concerning fraternization in his memory. It was his obligation to do so. However, the General’s own concern lay not with his own exposure to Strife’s sexual conquests, as he had gathered a huge amount of information in that short period of time, but rather with the possibility of another employee of Shinra stumbling upon the same thing.
There was also the matter of his conduct towards the blond two days previous. His lack of professionalism had resulted in an episode of PTSD in a man who Sephiroth was beginning to suspect suffered from some level of mental instability.
“However… I will overlook it this time. In the future, perhaps you would be more discrete.”
The blond met his eyes with a look of surprise, apparently once more at ease in his presence. “You know, you would be absolutely killer at Poker. Have you ever played?”
How the man had made that Zack-esque leap of logic was beyond Sephiroth’s ken. He gave the blond a confused look. “I have heard of it. Zack once tried to teach me to play, but I failed to see the use of such a game on the field. My time was far better spent going over strategies and our fortifications.”
Strife appeared thoughtful. “Use? Well, from Zack’s perspective I imagine that he was just trying to get you to have fun. If you think about it, though, there are more applications than that. I imagine sometimes your men can be nervous or aggressive. Sometimes a social game like Poker is just a good chance for everyone to relax and work off tension without killing things or blowing shit up.”
Sephiroth was once again struck by Strife’s insight. “I have no need to ‘work off tension’,” he said dismissively. He was entirely capable of keeping his emotions and stress levels balanced.
But the blond snorted in disagreement. “What, ‘cause you’re some Perfect Soldier? Nobody’s perfect, and that’s what makes us…” He paused in thought. “-who we are. Everybody has weaknesses and strengths, so a lot can be accomplished when people work together.”
It had been noted in Strife’s file that the cadet had been rather antisocial, stubborn, and a bit of a loner. Another conflicting piece of information.
When Strife made a face at his own words, Sephiroth smirked slightly in amusement. “Yes, I am aware of that.”
The blond coughed. “Right. Well, anyway, the point is that I’m sure you have tension to work off just like everyone else, and sometimes indulging in an activity that may appear useless can do the most for your soldier’s moral as well as your mood.”
Again he was making observations that would have been understandable from Zack, but less so from himself. Another inconsistency between his file and reality. “You appear to have some understanding of psychology. From my knowledge, you chose not to take that class during your cadet training.”
Strife stared at him as they finally reached the 61^st floor. “Have you read my whole file?” Sephiroth just watched his reaction. Slight surprise, but nothing else of note. “Well, psychology is basically just common sense, which I have a hefty amount of unlike Zack who managed to break a chair.”
“I heard that, Spike!”
Sephiroth watched with some amusement at the blond’s startled expression. That amusement disappeared into the deadly silence of his own mind as he caught sight of what was in the puppy’s mouth. “First Lieutenant Zack Fair. Why are you eating chocolate on my leather furniture?” My chocolate went unsaid.
The following moments moved at a blur of speed only SOLDIERs were capable of as Sephiroth tried to grab the miscreant for daring to touch his chocolate. His stores had already suffered unacceptable losses after all the late nights he’d been working on that project for Shinra, and he hadn’t been able to stock up again yet. He had hit the bottom of the barrel and Zack dared?
Finally they ended up in Sephiroth’s office after he swiped a letter opener off Cynthia’s desk in lieu of Masamune. He had suffered Zack’s indiscretion with his supplies for long enough. The thief needed a reminder of-
An obstacle had appeared in his way. Classification: civilian. He hesitated, looking back and forth between the civilian and his sworn enemy. How could he dissuade the chocolate thief if he could get at him?
They were talking. Sephiroth measured projected paths and the environment available to him to entrap the thief. While his sword was only seven feet away, the exit to the room was right behind him. In the time it would take to get his weapon, the thief would have run out of the room with his hostage.
Unacceptable.
The civilian was looking far more agitated now, and Sephiroth frowned slightly as a commanding tone exited the smaller body. “-muscle, that does not mean I’m suitable as a meat shield! So kindly get out from behind me before I break the rest of the chair on your head!”
To his surprise, Zack released his captive and watched the unexpected threat with a wary expression. Sephiroth turned his attention to the blond who had cowed his First Lieutenant with such ease.
“Zack, if you’re going to be a distraction and destroy more property, maybe your energies would be better spent doing some work?”
Sephiroth was impressed with his execution. No-nonsense, commanding…
The puppy pouted at him. “I was just acting as moral sup- I mean, stop channelling Seph! You’re supposed to take my side of things!”
…and it was actually working? Zack looked sufficiently cowed, whereas when Sephiroth demanded the same things, he grinned with a nervous laugh and changed the subject.
The blond rolled his eyes and gave the chair a caustic look, as though it had done him some personal injustice. “Did you break this thing on purpose or something? Or did you trip and your head broke off the back legs? No wait. Let me guess. You were leaning back on the legs and just happened to drop your entire weight on the chair.”
Sephiroth stared. How had he figured that out? The General added another point under ‘deductive reasoning skills’ to his mental list of the Strife Quandary.
“Uh- Perhaps Spike’s right Seph and I’ll just uh, go do that paperwork. Yeah.”
Sephiroth watched him take off with no little amount of incredulity. When he turned his attention back to the blond, he was wrapped up in examining the chair still knocked over on the floor. Realizing that he had missed his chance to get back at Zack, he let out a small, annoyed huff and went back to his desk. Might as well get some work done.
Sephiroth settled in his chair and put the letter opener still in his hand in his desk. He’d return it to Cynthia’s desk later.
“I hate to bother you, General, but I had a couple questions.”
Sephiroth glanced up from the form he’d been reading for a second, confirming that it was indeed the blond. “Yes?”
“Do you happen to have a Fire materia that I could borrow?”
He raised an eyebrow. A Fire materia? What in the world did he need that for? Interested to see, he went over to his weapons cabinet and unlocked it. Taking the Fire materia out, he tossed it at the custodian, noticing with approval that his hand eye coordination allowed him to catch it without a blink.
“Thanks. And also… did you want me to leave the room? I’m probably going to be a bit loud, hammering.”
Sephiroth thought about it for a second, the majority of his mind already back on the papers in front of him. “You are hardly as disruptive as Zack.” He doubted the blond could be loud enough and talk for long enough to actually distract him.
A few minutes later, a red glow flared through the room, making Sephiroth look up from his papers to see that not only was Strife using the materia without equipping it, but he had the control necessary to keep it at the proper temperature for metalsmithing.
How?
Sephiroth watched out of the corner of his eye as Strife calmly started to beat one of the nail heads into a point on his improvised anvil. His expression showed no signs of difficulty or fatigue, merely concentration as he worked on his task.
What in Planet had Strife done to fail his SOLDIER exam?
Turning to his computer, he quickly drew up the cadet file for Cloud Strife again. He’d already read through it before, but he hadn’t bothered to go into exam details. Pulling up the report for the exam, he stared in incomprehension at the list of dismal marks before him. Strife had struggled in many of his academic courses. Upon closer examination of attached pre-Shinra records, he discovered that before becoming a cadet, he hadn’t actually gone to a proper school. He’d done a few years as a young child in the Nibelheim public school before he’d stopped. There were no reasons cited, and five years later he had applied for the SOLDIER program. His hand-to-hand instructor had nothing good to say about him, and his sword instructor had a better review, though it was still lack lustre in its delivery. His materia scores were less than average.
Sephiroth glanced at the blond calmly sitting on the floor, working on the last nail in the first leg.
How was that even possible? Had the instructor been purposely lowering his marks? Had Strife not been applying himself? If he’d had a change of heart that eventually ended in him dropping out of the army altogether, how long had it been going on for? Did this substantiate any of his hypotheses? Without speaking to the instructors themselves, he would likely never know, and as it was it was highly unlikely that they would remember the below average and highly unimpressive – on paper – country bumpkin.
Sephiroth had witnessed the blond’s ability with a sword himself. His reaction times were fast as well, proven by the way he had moved to defend himself from McAphry’s broken sword. Not to mention his control with a materia was on par with the best – Sephiroth was one of the few in the SOLDIER program who could use a materia unequipped, let alone regulate power usage like Strife was.
He stared down at the papers on his desk in thought, mind mentally organizing and what he knew into three lists that he attached to his internal file of the blond. First was his lacklustre cadet information summarized, then his pros and cons as a recruit.
His mind focused on the more pertinent information. His hand to hand had thrown a SOLDIER. His sword play was obviously above average. Had a strong and stubborn personality, and had proven himself to be rather resourceful and sensible.
On the other side of things, he had proven to be somewhat unstable. While it seemed he had recovered from his ‘episode’ without any lingering affects, his propensity for erratic behaviour was alarming. Something had set him off that night and shattered those protective walls.
And Sephiroth wanted to know. Wanted to know why this man had had marks bad enough to fail his SOLDIER exam. Wanted to know the source of his paradoxical unstable stability.
He’d decided.
Sephiroth closed the files open on his computer and went back to his work, mind settled and clearer than it had been for a while now that he had a plan formulated and ready to execute. A few minutes later, a Fire materia was placed gently on his desk, and he looked up from his work to see Cloud looking at him expectantly, the fixed chair upright behind him.
Without a word, he reached into his drawer and pulled out the gift that he had decided on after speaking with Zack on the matter. He wasn’t accustomed to apologies.
Placing the tin on the front of his desk next to the Fire materia, he watched the blond expectantly. He didn’t disappoint, eventually taking the gift hesitantly and looking it over. When he removed the lid, his expression showed a hint of surprise, but not much else, as he had fallen behind his walls once more.
Or perhaps it was the persona that was pulled away.
Sephiroth, his mind running over the new possibilities, watched attentively as Cloud unwrapped his secondary gift and read the message within with a puzzled expression on his face that quickly unfolded into sheer disbelief. Blue eyes looked up to meet his own.
“What’s this for?”
Sephiroth frowned at the tone of the man’s voice. Had he miscalculated?
“I mean, I appreciate it certainly, but why?”
The General looked out his window for a moment as he formulated the best way to express his apology and the decision he’d come to. Multiple lines of thought snapping together into one unified whole, he turned his gaze back to the confused man before him. “I know you have some form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You showed all the signs of it the other night. I wanted to… apologize on my part for triggering an episode.” The blond’s expression slackened, mouth opening in surprise as his he stared at Sephiroth with dazed eyes. “While I would like to believe that such things are prevented in the SOLDIER program, I am aware of the lengths cadets will go to when put in stressful circumstances. This does not absolve them of their actions, however.” He paused. He still had no conclusive evidence on the nature of how Strife had developed PTSD, but he used a suitably vague and mostly likely accurate supposition. It was criminal that someone displaying his talent and so many of the characteristics desired in SOLDIER had somehow failed or lost the drive to continue. “While it may be too late to change things, I’d like you to know that if you would like to test for SOLDIER again without returning to the program first or joining the regular army, I would make an exception.”
The blond’s mouth opened a few times before he found his voice. “I… Where did- why would you- what made you think-“
Sephiroth watched in some amusement as the blonds thoughts went tumbling out of his head in his bafflement. “I have seen your sword practice, although it was without a blade. Zack also noted that during the program you were likely a victim of your peers.” Sephiroth had in fact gathered most of his Intel in regards to the blond’s ‘situation’ from pieces of memory and long-winded rants Zack had subjected him to over the months. “I have seen you to be hard working, self-sufficient, resourceful, creative when solving problems, capable with materia, and knowledgeable in psychology relating to this profession. I believe you would do well in SOLDIER, regardless of your past testing history.”
When Strife continued to stare at him in disbelief, not saying anything, the General continued. “You don’t need to give an answer now, just be aware that it is in an option in four months time.”
“The Turks are trying to recruit me,” he blurted out, surprising Sephiroth as new possibilities ran through his mind. He pressed his lips together in displeasure. Tseng.
“And I take it by your wording that you have not yet accepted?”
Strife twitched, a grimace twisted his face. “No. However, they may… force the issue.”
“Yes, they are known to do that.”
“I may not know what I want to do with my future yet, but I definitely don’t want to join the Turks.”
That made Sephiroth’s relax a bit. He absolutely despised when the Turks got the pick from his recruits. Especially when they stole the good ones. “I will speak to Tseng if you intend to take the SOLDIER examination in four months. Otherwise, there is little I can do.”
The blond grimaced. “I’m… not sure what I want to do yet, General. It’s a lot to think about.”
It wasn’t an outright refusal, so he had gotten better than Zack in that regard. “Very well then. Dismissed.”
Strife raised an eyebrow but gathered his things and left nonetheless without a word. Sephiroth watched him go with a contemplative expression. Would he choose to join SOLDIER or continue to waste himself as a custodian for Shinra Company?
It was hard to say.
-Toki Mirage-
Mwaha! Phase One is almost complete. Soon, we’ll be on to Phaaase Twooo~
This chapter was at times fun and a half to write, and irritating and a half to work out. I hope the over all effect was satisfying, enlightening, and enjoyable to read. I always finish Sephiroth POVs second guessing myself, because he’s such a complicated ASSHOLE! Thanks for nothing Seph! You’ve nearly given me grey hair!
I also realize that I’m making Reno rather unlikable. As much as I love Reno-centric fics, however, his rather complex character will lend itself to some… complicated stuff in the future. I appreciate everyone giving me their C/R opinions!
OMFG I have to rec this to all of you. This fic is HIGHLARIOUS. Found it on Momonster’s favs list, and I was in fits laughing for the whole thing. :D http : // www . fanfiction. net / s / 5063674/1/Unconventional The ending was all kinds of sugar coated goo (cough) but the beginning is hilarious!!
Also, if any of you by chance read this again, I have a suggested a couple songs for your reading entertainment. :)
First Scene: http : // www .youtube. com / watch? v=dkILUsJmL8Q (Choir’s first lyrics you hear are in Latin, and I’ve sung in Latin and I can’t pick out a single bloody consonant, so I assigned the following lyrics to the first ‘verse’: Coffee, goddamnit, goddamnit, shame on you, coffee, goddamnit, goddamnit, shame on you, Sephiroth! Sephiroth!)
Second scene (Cue: The Phone Call): http : // www .youtube. com / watch? v=50QLQWhTDW8 (Aaand repeat when Seph misses him on the elevator. Poor guy)
Happy reads, yo
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- 9
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The Little Guy